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It may be time for big, diversified miners such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to engage in some contrarian thinking about their businesses.Both BHP and Rio released production reports this week that on the surface were fairly positive, yet the market reaction was underwhelming, heightening a trend whereby the share prices of resource producers lag the prices of the commodities they sell.

Newcrest Mining has promoted its general manager projects Craig Jones to its executive committee as Executive GM Projects, responsible for the development and construction of all major Newcrest-managed capital projects.Jones, who joined Newcrest four years ago from the projects area at Rio Tinto, has been leading completion of the $US1.3B Lihir Island Million Ounce Plant Upgrade (MOPU) expansion in Papua New Guinea. He replaces Ron Douglas, who resigned after five years with the company.

Rio Tinto has posted record iron ore production for the June 2012 half and remains on track for 283Mtpa from its Pilbara operations in Western Australia by the end of 2013 and 353Mtpa by the first half 2015.Copper, bauxite, alumina, coking coal and titanium dioxide production were also all higher than the 2nd qtr 2011.

Rio Tinto has reported flat iron ore output for the June 2012 qtr from a year ago and says it’s on track for 283Mtpa by the end of 2013, despite concerns over cooling growth in top metals consumer China.The world's second biggest iron ore miner, which recently committed $US3.7B to expand its production capacity by 25%, said even with a deterioration in global economic conditions in the second quarter, its expansion projects still stack up.

Mining giant Rio Tinto has decided not to participate in the planned €1B+ Moncorvo iron ore project in northern Portugal, but the Portuguese government remains confident it will find developers as other foreign firms remain interested, two sources close to the process have told Reuters."The Moncorvo mines project will go ahead, but most likely without Rio Tinto," one source said. The talks with the Anglo-Australian miner have not formally ended but the result was practically clear."Rio Tinto is choosing to give up smaller projects and Moncorvo should be one of them."

Rio Tinto has awarded a $A30M mine services infrastructure contract for its Marandoo Mine Phase 2 project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia to Decmil Australia. The contract involves construction of a workshop, offices, refuelling, wash down and storage facilities as well as staff amenities.The contract award follows February’s announcement of a a milestone five-year framework agreement covering early contractor involvement for Decmil in Rio’s expanding Pilbara iron ore interests.

Rio Tinto has reached a tentative agreement with representatives of unionized workers at the Alma aluminium smelter.A total of 780 workers at the 438,000tpa smelter, in Quebec, northeast Canada, have been locked out since January 1, when contract negotiations broke down.The agreement between the company and representatives will be presented to employees in a general assembly to be held over the next few days.A ratification vote will be held at a meeting later this week.